1
Institute for Christian Teaching
Education Department of Seventh-day Adventists
FAITH AND LEARNING:
THE APPROACHES OF THREE INFLUENTIAL
ADVENTIST ENGLISH TEACHERS
By
Delmer Davis
Andrews University
Berrien Spring, Michigan
370-99 Institute for Christian Teaching
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904 USA
Prepared for the
24th International Faith and Learning Seminar
held at
Andrews University, Berrien Spring, Michigan, U.S.A.
June 20-July 2, 1999
1
Introduction
The history of Seventh-day Adventist college English teacher in North American has yet to be written.[1] If and when such a history is written however, it seems clear that three teachers will dominate the pages devoted to the post-World War Two era: J. Paul Stauffer, Ottilie Stafford, and John O. Waller. The influential of these teachers has been immense-the result of their personalities, standards, vision, and dedication to Adventist education. At present, fifty percent of the English teachers in the eleven North American Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities offering degrees in English have been students of one or more of these three teachers.[2] Even though all three of the teachers are now retired or semi-retired, their influence persists in the legacy passed along to these former students who are now teaching others.
Former students fondly remember the three professors. "Paul Stauffer influenced my life more than any other teacher and friend," noted one ("Memories of a great Teacher: J.Paul Stauffer" 2). Former students, writing about Staufford for Adventist Heritage, emphasize that, "many students credit Stafford with being their most influential teacher" (Blackie and Norcliffe 45). When students of Waller reminisce about his classes, usually they point to his memorable in-class readings of poems as unforgettable and transforming in how they have come to view good literature (Jones Gray). These teachers' excellence has been recognized in concrete ways, also. Pacific Union College recently named the English Department building after Paul Stauffer. The Ottilie Stafford Poetry collection at Atlantic Union College composes hundreds of volumes related to modern poetry, housed in a special room in the library. Waller's former colleagues and students plan to honor him with a special lectureship and scholarship program as well as with a named room in the soon-to-be remodeled Nethery Hall at Andrews University.
During most of their teaching careers, the phrase "integration of faith and learning" had not yet become well-known in Seventh-day Adventist educational circles. Regardless, all three teachers inevitably faced the issue of relating their Christian commitment to their professional careers. What should be the emphasis of the college curriculum for Christian students? Should the curriculum be organized around some sort of Christian approach to the learning? What is the place of English studies in the Christian life? What reading selections are appropriate? How explicit should the teacher be in revealing his or her Christian commitment in the classroom? Is the teacher's Christian example the most important determining influence on students? An examination of the teaching practices and professional writings of these three professors from the perspective of what Arthur Holmes has called "The Worldview Approach" illuminates the reasons for their successes and underscores the challenges of integrating faith and learning for Seventh-day Adventist English teachers.
1
Worldview as a Perspective for Evaluation
In his book, The idea for a Christian College, Arthur Holmes sketches four approaches to the integration of faith and learning: "The Attitudinal Approach" (47-50); "the Ethical Approach" (50-52); "The Foundational Approach" (52-57); and "The World view Approach" (57-60). Although Holmes does not specifically chart a hierarchy for his four categories, his descriptions suggest that "The World View Approach" is the most ideal approach in that the teacher with a well-thought-out worldview will, in essence, display the attributes and traits noted for the other three approaches in their approaches to their disciplines (58). Holmes' "World View Approach" thus provides a perspective from which to evaluate these three Seventh-day Adventist English professors in relationship to the integration of faith and learning.
James W. Sire's book, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, suggests helpful corollary information about worldview, which Sire defines as "a set of presuppositions… which we hold… about the basic makeup of our world" (16). Sire insists that these "presuppositions" (a person's worldview) from the basic "framework" within which each person deals with life (16). He goes ahead to note that a person's answers to seven questions are basic to defining anyone's worldview. Those questions have to do with the natures of "prime reality," "external reality," humanity, death, knowledge, "right and wrong," and "human history" (17-18). For Arthur Holmes, "The Worldview Approach" results in the "most embracing contact between Christianity and human learning, one that is "all-encompassing" (57). He rejects the notion that the faculty of a university can take an objective approach and can remain "'neutral'" while presenting a variety of worldviews. Such an approach results in an emphasis "on the parts rather than the whole" and "a fragmented view of life that lacks overall meaning," "'an intellectual polytheism'" that is as much "a worldview as is Christian theism" (57). In contrast, Holmes sees the Christian worldview as providing an excellent source for integration because it is "holistic" while at the same time "exploratory," somewhat "pluralistic," and "confessional" (58-59). The person with well-conceived "Christian worldview… looks without, at life and thought in other departments and disciplines, in order to see these other things from the standpoint of revelation and as an interrelated whole" (59). As Sire observes, "everyone has a worldview" (16). Thus, inevitably, the Christian worldview of any teacher shows itself to some degree to students. The essential differences among Stauffer, Stafford, and Waller is the extent to which their worldviews became a conscious and articulate basis for their professional careers and their classroom practices.
The Teacher as Example: J. Paul Stauffer
J. Paul Stauffer graduated from Pacific Union College (B.A. 1941; M.A. 1944) and Harvard University (Ph.D. 1952). His college teaching career centered on the West Coast, first at Pacific Union College, from 1942-1964, chairing the English Department from 1955-1964, and, then, later at Loma Linda University and what is now La Sierra University, where, as Graduate Dean for both campuses, he occasionally taught courses in English from 1964-1978.
One former student praises Stauffer as a teacher who possessed "'a cultivated intellect [and] dispassionate mind '"("Memories" 1). Another student remembers Stauffer as the "epitome of the educated 'Renaissance man'" ("Memories" 2). His elegant presence, his well-modulated voice, his controlled manner, his unruffled handling of student concerns, his wide reading-all contributed to his achieving an almost heroic stature among his students ("Memories" 2). The fact that someone as talented as he had chosen to use his Harvard degree at a small Seventh-day Adventist college made it clear that he was a committed Christian. In classes, Stauffer expected his students to think for themselves, requiring students to read, analyze and comment on poems in class, eschewing the lecture method, questioning and probing student comments in an attempt to get students to think.
This high value on clear thinking and respect for learning mirrors the Arthur Holmes description of Christian teachers included in his sketch of "the Attitudinal Approach" to the integration of faith and learning. Such teachers, says Holmes, realize that "in God's creation every area of life and learning is related to the wisdom and power of God" (47). In particular, notes Holmes, for such teachers, "required general education courses must present not narrow specializations in isolation from each other but ideas that stretch the mind, open up historical perspective, enlarge windows on the world, and reveal the creative impact of Christian faith and thought" (50).
For Paul Stauffer the general studies reform of the Pacific Union College curriculum in the 1950s was perhaps his most important, consistent attempt to integrate faith and learning (E-mail 4 June 1999).[3] He notes that the central "text" for this reform movement was the well-known Ellen White quotation from the book Education about thinking: "Every human being, created in the image of God, is endowed with a power akin to that of the Creator-individuality, power to think and to do…. It is the work of true education develop this power, to train the youth to be thinkers, and not mere reflectors of other men's thoughts" (17).[4] Stauffer remembers how the faculty involved in setting up the new curriculum on specifically "Adventist" grounds consciously reacted against those in the Seventh-day Church who "cared only about the role of the college as indoctrinator" and whose "statement of purpose for the college were not very much different than they would have been for a junior camp, essentially ignoring the role of the college in fostering intellectual growth." He notes that after three-year leave to study at Harvard (1946-1949), he returned to Pacific Union College to find the faculty deeply involved in discussions about curriculum, related "to the ideals of education elaborated by Ellen White and to curricular innovation in other institutions." He expresses his surprise at finding that the faculty were well acquainted with the book General Education in a Free Society, the influential study carried out at Harvard under the influence of James B. Conant, but a work which Stauffer "Knew nothing about despite…[his] recent experience at Harvard, "where Conant was the president. Stauffer became the chair of the sub-committee on general studies and worked with other members to create "a program that was 'distinctly Adventist.'"
Using Ellen White as a foundation for emphasis on thinking as a basis for the reform, the Pacific Union College faculty intended to develop "'intellectual Christians," partially as a result of their own feelings of inadequacy as some of them and had gone to non-Adventist universities for doctoral study and found themselves "in competition with others whose undergraduate education had been much more demanding…" they wanted to "develop programs with more intellectual rigor than had been typical of many of the courses offered in the past."[5] They also believed that Ellen White's writings indicated the need to see all experience holistically and to "emphasize the inter-relatedness" of all the disciplines (Benedict 3). The resultant general studies curriculum emphasized "four divisions of learning" and four core class sequences, all interdisciplinary to some extent: "Introduction to Scientific Thought, Problems of Man and His Society, Introduction to Western Arts, and Biblical Philosophy." In principle, certainly, these interdisciplinary courses broke down the usual barriers created by traditional learning boundaries, moving towards Arthur Holmes' foal for general education courses, noted in his discussion of the "Attitudinal Approach," as those classes, which "must present not narrow specializations in isolation from each other, but ideas that stretch the mind…" (50).[6]
What is most interesting about Stauffer's reminiscence about his part in this general education reform effort is his candidness about how the deliberately "Adventist" purpose of the curriculum revision was not really carried over into the classroom itself in a concerted, wee-thought-out manner, even though the basic premise of the reform was to emphasize thinking, as supported by Ellen White counsel. Stauffer's word on this matter echo almost exactly Arthur Holmes' description of the "Attitudinal Approach" to the integration of faith and learning, in which the teacher's example is most important. "From the teacher," says Holmes, "the alluring contours of a Christian mind begin to emerge" (50). Stauffer notes similarly:
I am not sure we [the PUC faculty] ever articulated clearly what we meant by that [distinctly Adventist curriculum] or explicitly how we expected to accomplish it. I think it meant that teachers, themselves devoted to the faith and highly competent in their fields, would by their own Adventist commitment teach their students in a way that would function as a model of the integration of faith and learning (though in those days we did not use that phrase).
In the context of the times, Stauffer goes ahead to indicate, the faculty and students
were engaged in a consistent program of worships, chapels, vespers, and Sabbath activities the emphasized "a distinctive sense of community" as a "community of faith in the pursuit
of both spiritual and intellectual goals." Evidently, the faculty assumed that such campus-wide faith activities did not require conscious reinforcement with consistent and well-thought-out efforts to connect learning and faith in the classroom beyond the teacher's example.
On the other hand, inevitably literature teachers deal with historical and philosophical questions as they and their students approach texts in the classroom. And, more importantly for the Christian English teacher in Christian classroom, theology must also surface as a part of these discussions. Arthur Holmes underscore how Christian humanities teachers must wrestle with such aspects of the literature curriculum were less carefully planned than has been the case for Ottilie Stafford and John Waller. Stauffer notes, for example, that when thinking about his career in relationship to the integration of faith and learning, "my first reaction, thinking only of my functioning in English courses, was that I never gave really serious and organized thought to accomplishing that integration" (E-mail 4 June 1999). This is not to say that he did not provide careful and thoughtful descriptions of the philosophical and historical contexts within which writers and artists produced their works. The Introduction to Western Arts general education course, for example, was organized completely around historical, philosophical and aesthetic movements. As one who took this course and numerous others from him and who later team-taught interdisciplinary courses with him, I can verify that Stauffer thoroughly understood and emphasized these contexts, but evidently he did not go into the classroom with the purpose of explicitly trying these contexts to theology, preferring to believe that the students would be able to make these connections themselves or to raise questions only when the curriculum provided obvious occasions. As a Victorian specialist, he notes, for example, that his "interest in English poetry of the latter half of the nineteenth century" provided regular opportunities "to consider with students that challenges to faith that resulted from Darwinism. "But he concludes that he is not sure that such "consideration contributed to the integration of faith and learning. .." (E-mail 4 June 1999). As noted earlier, event the general studies reform, built specifically on an "Adventist" basis, did not include any specific and carefully thought out attempts to carry a careful plan about integration into the classroom. Although Stauffer seems apologetic about his role in relationship to the conscious integration of faith and learning (he calls himself a "horrible example"). (E-mail 17 May 1999), apparently he has some reservations about any approach to such integration, whether the emphasis is on the teacher as Christian example (his approach) or, beyond that, on a curriculum built around a carefully constructed integration (E-mail 4 June 199).
Language Facility as the Core: Ottilie Stafford
Ottilie Stafford has been identified with New England, graduating from Atlantic Union College with her B.A. in 1941 and returning to AUC in 1951, after teaching a few years at an academy in Arizona and at what is now Southern Adventist University. Stafford's M.A. (1948) and Ph.D. (1960) are both from Boston University. Stafford chaired the English Department at AUC from 1962-1989. At AUC now for almost 50 years of teaching, although now partially retired, she continues to teach courses on a regular basis. Possessed of a charismatic personality, Stafford has long been known as a "challenging" teacher. "Although students are sometimes intimidated initially by the work load and Stafford's tough reputations, they quickly learn to appreciate her classes, in which open discussion of important issues is consistently encouraged" (Blackie and Norcliffe 45)).
Ottilie Stafford, similar to Paul Stauffer, has consistently emphasized the importance of thinking to Christian education. Like Stauffer, in her classes she expects students to analyze, interpret and question, ""pushing"" students ""o be more honest and less glib in ... reactions to class reading" (Wendth 10). In her 1981 article, "Do We Hold Learning in Contempt?" Stafford decries the state of SDA college students who "find it almost impossible to follow the logical development of thought, even in material written for popular reading….To think through a problem and to express it in coherent and well-developed paragraphs is agony for them" (5). She attacks "Adventist" defenses of "ignorance-knowledge being full of error, evil, and various seductions. Some of our students sincerely believe that if they leave their minds empty, God will put whatever needs to be known into them. Not one of the early leaders in Adventist education would have agreed with that theory" (42). She goes ahead to plead for "creative thinkers and problem-solvers" (42) and sketches some suggestions for parents and teachers that will help the situation (43). Similarly, in her 1993 article, "The Questing Imagination," first delivered as a commencement address at Canadian Union College, Stafford argues the "resilience of the mind and its ability to venture into new and (for the individual at any rate, unexplored) territories is a central concern if education" (6). She notes that the "educated person learns to live with . . . change" brought on to "knowledge and experience," and "learns how to welcome the unsettling if idea and the shattering of visions… (6). She emphasizes that development of the person is the key to educational and cites Alfred North Whitehead, for whom "transmission of knowledge was not the role of education, but the transformation of the mind and the lives of students and of their societies" (7). Responding to her citation by change magazines as "as one of only 280 educators across the United States to be honored by the Association for Higher Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching," Stafford commented again on her educational emphasis on thinking and ideas as transforming experiences.